Heart rate monitors: Most fitness equipment includes contact sensors that read your heart rate by placing your hands on the handles.For example, keeping the resistance and speed so that your heart rate is at about 55 percent would be beneficial for overall heart health while reaching 85 percent of your maximum heart rate would be more challenging and contribute to accelerated fat loss.įitness equipment should let consumers keep track of their vital signs as they are exercising so that they know they are maintaining an optimal level of exertion. Heart rate controlled workouts: Some equipment includes workouts based on the percentage of your maximum heart rate during exercise.Machines with “fat burn” modes combine speed, resistance, time and biological factors to provide a challenging workout. Fat burning mode: People who are exercising to lose weight may require a different level of resistance than people who are exercising to maintain a healthy weight, improve heart health or gain muscle mass.Routines based on biological factors: Whatever routine a consumer chooses, they should be able to input height, weight and sex so that the machine can tailor the routine to the consumer.Some cardio machines include more than 40 pre-programmed workouts. Ideally, fitness equipment should come with several pre-programmed routines, each meant to meet certain health and fitness goals such as weight loss, fitness testing or heart health.
Resistance level: The consumer can easily see the resistance they are working against and change it as needed.Calories burned: This display option tells the exerciser how many calories they have burned so far.Time & distance monitoring: The display should include distance traveled and total time spent exercising.If all data is not present at once on the screen, the information, such as calories burned and distance, should toggle automatically or able to be switched with the push of a button. For top of the line models of cardio equipment, consumers should be able to view as much exercise data as possible on one large, backlight screen.